


Just A Little Bit More

by illyriantremors



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Angst, Dreams, F/M, Fluff, Nightmares, Rhys POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 14:18:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9495452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illyriantremors/pseuds/illyriantremors
Summary: A short mini fic in which Feyre has been in the Night Court for a month when she falls asleep on Rhys's shoulder at dinner in front of everyone and Rhys does not know what to do with himself.





	

A light weight on his shoulder and a short motion out of the corner of his eye is what silences the table.

The wine glass Mor holds pauses en route to her lips. Cassian’s booming laugh cuts off. And Azriel sets his utensils down from where he’d been picking apart the meat with a faint _clinking_ on his plate. Amren alone remains quiet, smirking over her glass of Rhys doesn’t want to know what, the only one who seemed to anticipate this moment.

Rhys looks to his left and finds Feyre with her head on his shoulder and she’s...   


Asleep.

His entire body goes still in that moment, his heart the only thing bursting with life inside of him. Feyre’s only been in the Night Court for maybe a month and sleep has been hard to come by. But she’s sleeping now. Next to him. On him. And she seems oddly peaceful about it in a way he’s never seen her before.

He remembers the nightmares. He remembers all of them. But none of the terrors that flashed through him in a flurry of panic and sweat for three months after he came home from that mountain compared to the one he had to wake her up from himself. How Feyre had thrashed on the bed, talons ripping the sheets, the anxiety on her face when she’d finally gotten a hold of herself and had to fly to the bathroom before it all came screaming up her throat.

The blood. The tears. The pain. Miles and miles of pain choking the life out of her and all Rhys could do was sit and watch it unfold, hoping she wouldn’t stop him from rubbing circles on her back until it was over. He’d tucked her in that night, stayed a while. Didn’t leave her side until he was sure she was okay again.

He wonders if this will be one of those times, except...

Keeping his entire body rigidly still, Rhys moves only his eyes and catches Morrigan staring at Feyre. She glances at Rhys and a soft reassuring smile blooms on her face. “You were saying? About Cassian’s last trip to Adriata?”

And that’s that. That’s all she says. And Rhys goes on telling the story that only moments ago had Cassian in stitches about his own antics and Azriel quietly shaking his head.

And the entire time, Rhys sees Morrigan, the cousin who knows every secret he has carried for weeks now, staring at him. Staring at Feyre. Staring and smiling. Because they both know that Feyre can barely fall asleep in her own bed, much less in front of their inner circle. Because they know this means something. Because they know this is the beginning.

Because they know that maybe Feyre had been about to smile too before she felt comfortable enough to fall asleep on her mate without knowing it.  


And Rhys feels this little seed of hope inside him crack, a tiny sprout peaking out to see some sunlight.

The rest of dinner is pleasant. Feyre doesn’t move once. When Rhys scoops her up to lay her on the sofa so he can go over updated plans for the mortal realms with Azriel on the balcony, she remains ever tranquil. Cassian begins piecing out dessert on the table and Mor digs in before she has even finished plating it in front of her. Amren shakes her head but doesn’t say anything.

Dessert is nearly finished when Cassian cuts off telling his version of visiting Adriata, the table going eerily quiet again. Rhys freezes because he just knows. He felt Feyre even before Morrigan put her hand on him and whispered, _“Rhys.”_

Feyre twitches on the sofa uncomfortably. Rhys can see her eyes rolling back and forth rapidly beneath her closed lids. Her hands curl into fists and constrict around her chest. Sweat begins to pull across her brow.

He’s up in a heartbeat.

“Feyre,” he says kneeling next to her and his voice is more a sob than a plea. “Feyre, wake up.”

Rhys shakes her. Shakes her until she groans and wakes up, sitting bolt upright, the hands just on the verge of letting those razor sharp talons inch out of her digging into his shoulders as she grabs him. He doesn’t even feel the pain.

“A dream,” he tells her. “It was just a dream.”

She’s breathing deeply. Her eyes flit to the table where Rhys’s friends - her friends now - are watching and quickly flit back to find Rhys’s eyes. They’ve never seen her in such a state of panic. And it terrifies Rhys how she’ll feel about that.

Suddenly, Feyre sucks her lips in and he knows she’s holding it all in. He starts breathing with her, deeply and loud enough for Feyre to hear. She mimics him.

“In,” Rhys says. “Out. In. Out.”

She shakes her head, more at herself than him, and he hears the words past her broken mental barriers.

 _I’m not going to throw up. I’m not going to throw up. I’m fine. I’m okay. This is okay. It was just a dream. It wasn’t real._ This _is real._  


When she murmurs 'this,’ her talons release on Rhys’s shoulder, but her fingers left in their place give a little tug on his tunic and Rhys instinctively leans forward. He doesn’t move nor stop his labored breathing for her until she slows down, until her lips release, and her grip slackens.

But she’s tired. He can see how utterly exhausted she is despite sleeping all through dinner. A thousand years of sleep might not be enough to erase the kind of fatigue he and Feyre both suffer from.

Feyre looks at him, the blue-grey of her eyes more grey tonight than blue.

She had been so peaceful, he thinks.

 _Can you take me back?_ She asks him through the bond. She doesn’t even have to ask him to lower his shields for her to come through. _Pl-_

Rhys has her in his arms before the word is even finished in their heads. He will never make her beg him for anything. And then without another word or so much as a look at anyone else, they’re soaring off the balcony into a smooth flight through the night wind.

Rhys tells Feyre to look up at the stars, but it makes no difference. She’s asleep again long before they reach the townhouse.

xx  


**Author's Note:**

> I have had the idea for this stuck in my head since summer and just never wrote it down. Thank you for reading! Feel free to leave feedback if you feel so inclined. :)


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